Allowing teen drinking in your home

Allowing kids to drink in the home in order to avoid the dangers of drinking and driving is another one of those classic traps that parents tend to fall into. Their goal is to keep their kids safe. And they don't want their kids to die on the road in a drunk driving accident, so they think, if I let them drink at home, they'll be safe. Unfortunately, that substitutes one dangerous behavior for another. When teenagers drink, they are in danger by definition. Now I know that there are a lot of studies out there which say that teenagers drink a lot. And there are studies that say teenagers in high school, in their Senior year, two out of every three of them are gonna have a drink at least one time during their Senior year. And yet one quarter of them get drunk on a regular basis. That means three quarters of them don't. So imagining that teenagers are gonna be safe when they drink at home and don't drive, it ignores the fact that drinking itself is dangerous and impactful in kids' lives. It makes them more likely to become addicted to alcohol as adults. It makes them more likely to do poorly academically. It eliminates the development of incredibly important skills across a broad range of topics. It also predisposes them to making really bad decisions around dangerous behaviors, mostly centered in sex, pregnancy, transmission of STDs, and being either the perpetrator or the victim of violent acts.

Jonathan Scott

Drug Prevention Speaker, Author & Dad

Miles to Go educators, Jonathan and Kelly are professional speakers, writers and parents who specialize in drug prevention education for students, teachers and parents. Working from their base in Southern California, they have spent the past 17 years lecturing in the private school community using humor, science and multi-sensory teaching techniques to simplify a complex subject. Their first book, Not All Kids Do Drugs came out in 2010 and their second The Mother’s Checklist of Drug Prevention in 2011. Their third book, Where’s The Party was published in 2012.

Allowing kids to drink in the home in order to avoid the dangers of drinking and driving is another one of those classic traps that parents tend to fall into. Their goal is to keep their kids safe. And they don't want their kids to die on the road in a drunk driving accident, so they think, if I let them drink at home, they'll be safe. Unfortunately, that substitutes one dangerous behavior for another. When teenagers drink, they are in danger by definition. Now I know that there are a lot of studies out there which say that teenagers drink a lot. And there are studies that say teenagers in high school, in their Senior year, two out of every three of them are gonna have a drink at least one time during their Senior year. And yet one quarter of them get drunk on a regular basis. That means three quarters of them don't. So imagining that teenagers are gonna be safe when they drink at home and don't drive, it ignores the fact that drinking itself is dangerous and impactful in kids' lives. It makes them more likely to become addicted to alcohol as adults. It makes them more likely to do poorly academically. It eliminates the development of incredibly important skills across a broad range of topics. It also predisposes them to making really bad decisions around dangerous behaviors, mostly centered in sex, pregnancy, transmission of STDs, and being either the perpetrator or the victim of violent acts.